As portable electronic devices such as wireless phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cameras, two-way pagers and the like become increasingly prevalent, manufacturers continue to add new features to such products. In particular, because portable electronics devices are geographically mobile by nature, consumers are now demanding “location based” features such as customized mapping, customized driving directions, emergency locating services and the like that have not been previously available in many commonly-carried devices.
The global positioning system (GPS) has been widely utilized in recent years to provide location-based services such as location tracking. The GPS system, which is operated by the United States Department of Defense, presently includes twenty-four satellites positioned in geosynchronous orbit around the earth that continuously broadcast time and location information to receivers on the ground. By coordinating time and location information from multiple satellites, GPS receivers are able to accurately calculate their precise location on the surface of the earth. GPS receivers are available from many suppliers, including Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Illinois.
Although many types of GPS components and GPS-enabled devices are currently available, many of these components and devices have in practice been relatively difficult to integrate into portable phones, PDAs and the like due to the complexity, size, cost and other limitations inherent in many GPS receivers. Accordingly, most phones, PDAs and other portable devices do not presently provide location-based features. It is therefore desirable to create a GPS receiver that is capable of being implemented within a single compact chip or other component suitable for use with portable devices. In addition, it is desirable to create a wireless receiver that can be integrated into mobile products with minimal technical risk, time to market and design cost. Moreover, it is desirable to create a wireless receiver that is efficient in terms of space and electrical power consumption. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.